In 1643
Humphrey Chadbourne bought a large tract of land at the confluence of the
Great Works and Salmon Falls River from Sagamore Rowls.
[1]Four years
later Rowls sold more land to Chadbourne’s brother-in-law, Thomas Spencer.Finally in 1651, he sold “an ould Corne ground which
I the sayd Rowls have formerly made use of” to Chadbourne’s mother-in-law,
Katherine Treworgy.
[2]Thus, from
an early date, the family was well acquainted with the local Indians. Presumably,
Humphrey took up residence on the site at the time of his purchase in 1643
or soon afterwards. The confluence of the rivers was an ideal spot for a
fur trading post and Chadbourne's primary activity in these years probably
was a fur trader, though he also was a house builder, a skill he would have
learned from his father. In 1651 George Walton of Portsmouth, sucessfully
sued Humphrey for building a house that was not up to the standards agreed
upon in the building contract.
[3]In July 1654
Humphrey Chadbourne accompanied local Indians on a trading voyage to Lake
Winnipesaukee, in southern New Hampshire. There he found himself at a major
gathering of peoples, including “sagamores of note.”
[4] Collectively this group wanted Chadbourne
to help them negotiate a treaty with the government of Massachusetts.

That same
year the town of Kittery granted Humphrey's father William Chadbourne a
saw mill privilege on the Great Works River. The Chadbournes soon constructed
a saw mill on the site, and the fur trade probably took a back seat to the
developing lumber industry.

The thin
documentary evidence suggests that the first house on the site may have
been very simple. In the early eighteenth century Humphrey's great grandson
made a deposition as a part of a land claims case on the Saco River. As
a part of his deposition he said he remembered his father and uncle reminiscing
about their "grandfather's logg house or loging
house and that said house stood about half a mile Southerly of Quampeging
(sic) Landing in Berwick near Little River now called great works river and
further saith not."
[5]This locates
the "loging house" somewhere near the confluence of the Salmon Falls and
Great Works Rivers.While one might immediately
think that Chadbourne was referring to a log cabin, a "logging hut" was
in actuality a very crude structure, perhaps a lean-to or a semi-subterranean
pit house, that was constructed by loggers, while establishing a temporary
camp in the area. For example, in 1707 the Kittery town records refer to
land laid out to Thomas Goodwin,"beginning about
30 or 40 poles below the logging house or wigwam that Wm. Grant, Thomas
and Daniel Goodwin, and Joseph Hodsden, kept in, the last winter."
[6]

It would
seem that the deponent is probably remembering his father and uncle reminisce
about their childhoods, when they remembered the original Chadbourne residence,
a very crude affair, indeed. By their childhood the logging hut would have
given way to the fine mansion house but the first structure still stood,
perhaps being used as some sort of outbuilding.

The Chadbournes
were not your typical early New England family, for several reasons. First,
they were among the first settlers of the region, and related to the leading
families.Humphrey's wife Lucy Treworgy was the
niece of Nicholas Shapleigh, one of the richest and most powerful men in
Maine. After the death of her husband James Treworgy, Lucy's mother would
marry Edward Hilton. The Hiltons were also among the elite of the Piscataqua
region. Although it cannot be proven, the family may be also be unusual
because of they may have strayed from mainstream Puritan views. In 1645 Humphrey and Roger Nanney had jointly purchased
a house in Dover from Christopher Lawson. Nanney was the son-in-law of the
antimonian leader, Reverend John Wheelwright. Lawson was a kinsman of Anne
Hutchinson and a follower of Wheelwright who had signed the Exeter Compact.
Humphrey's and Lucy's daughter Patience married Thomas Spencer, who was
disenfranchised in 1659 for entertaining Quakers. Their dealings with Quakers
and Antinomians certainly suggest the family may have swayed from mainstream
Puritanism.

Humphrey
Chadbourne would prosper on the land and would become a leading office holder
in and respected man in Kittery. When he died in 1667, he was one of the wealthiest men in New England. In addition to his mansion
house and farm, he owned the nearby saw mill, a second farm in present-day
Eliot, and other holdings of timberlands. The mansion house and farm were
valued at 250 pounds.At the time, the entire estate
for the average Maine man was perhaps 80-100 pounds. Thus, the house must
have been extensive and well built. Humphrey's will was written
May 25, 1667, and recorded on October 15, 1667.

Humphrey Chadbourne left behind a young family. The home
farm was entailed by his will, and remained in the hands of the eldest son
(Lieutenant Humphrey Chadbourne) and his eldest son (Humphrey Chadbourne
III) until 1763. People outside the eldest son had very limited rights to
use the land. When Lieutenant Humphrey Chadbourne inherited the land, he
was only 14. The terms of the will dictated that his mother Lucy essentially
controlled the property until he reached adulthood. Even after this point,
Lucy and the minor children had the right to continue to live in the family
house. Lucy remarried after April 1 1669 and probably by April 13, 1671.
Her second husband, Thomas Wills, was a Kittery merchant.

(YD 2: 27-31).

It was a second marriage
for Thomas Wills as well, having married Sarah Abbott by 1662.They lived in Kittery, in the Crooked Lane house,
which was given to them by Sarah father, Walter Abbott. No deed was ever
made, but this gift was confirmed in a deed on Jan. 30, 1688 (presumably
actually 1689, especially since the deed presumes the 1688 death of Thomas
Wills Sr.). The deed is from Peter, Thomas and John Abbott (all sons of Walter
Abbott) to their niece and nephew, Thomas and Sarah Wills. The deed states
the house was a gift from Walter Abbott to their parents, and upon their
death, the children were to inherit the house - 2/3 to Thomas Jr. and 1/3
to his sister Sarah. By this time Sarah had probably married John Geare.
So, presumably soon after she married, Lucy moved in with Thomas in his
house in Kittery, and she lived there until his death in 1689. She may have
moved back to South Berwick at this time, though she would marry a third
time, to Elias Stileman.

Probably about 1676 Lieutenant
Humphrey Chadbourne marries Sarah Bolles. Their first child was born in
September 1678. In 1676 Humphrey would have been 23 and Sarah 19.Once he married, he gained the right, according to
his fathers will, to "fence and in a quantity of the aforesaid lands, at
Newichawannock, either ten acres more or less for planting land, and also
free liberty to erect and build him a Mansion house and other houses." To
date, all evidence suggests that he instead elected to live in his father's
house.

King William's War would
bring an end to the Chadbourne homestead. In 1689 Dover suffered from a devastating
raid. In the spring of 1690 a combined Native and French force attacked
Salmon Falls, killing and taking captive many friends and neighbors of the
Chadbournes. No document survives to tell us exactly what happened to the
homestead, or when it was destroyed, but all evidence suggests it was during
the Salmon Falls raid.

History of Excavation

The Humphrey
Chadbourne site was discovered in August 1995, during a two-day project
to introduce local teachers to archaeology. Every summer since then, the
Old Berwick Historical Society has sponsored a two-week excavation at the
site. The project is scheduled to conclude in 2001. The project has been
a unique partnership between Salem State College, Old Berwick Historical
Society, the Chadbourne Family Association, as well as professional archaeologists
and dozens of community volunteers. Emerson W. Baker, Ph.D., of Salem State
College, directs the project. The field assistants are Richard Fernald, Richard
Lunt, and Gordon Russell. Several hundred volunteers have given thousands
of volunteer hours to excavate the site, as well as clean and catalogue the
artifacts.

Summary of work by seasons

1995 - A two-day field school was organized,
on a site that was believed to contain the remains of the 1630s Newichawannock
trading post. Instead, a mid-seventeenth-century homestead is revealed,
the home of Humphrey Chadbourne Sr. and Jr., and their families.

1996 - The project expanded to two weeks
of excavation and laboratory work to clean, catalogue and study artifacts.
It became clear that a minimum of two structures had been discovered - a
substantial dwelling house, and an earth-fast outbuilding, located just
to the north of the house. All evidence indicated a house built in the 1640s
or 1650s, and destroyedduring the Salmon Falls
raid of 1690. In other words, this could not be the 1630s trading post,
but the home of the Chadbournes who purchased the land in 1643, and lived
there until forced off in 1690. The 1996 dig was a tremendous success -
over sixty people volunteered on an excavation that had produced some exciting
finds that were beginning to tell us quite a bit about life for the first
English settlers of the area. The story was carried far and wide by local
newspapers coverage on MPBN's "Quest" television show and through a series
of slide talks. The main talk given by Emerson Baker in the fall of 1996
had over 140 people in attendance.

1997 - Building upon previous successes,
in 1997 the project lasted three weeks, with two weeks in the field, and
one week in the laboratory. The 1997 project began in June with the installation
of an exhibit curated by Emerson Baker, which told the story of the dig
and displayed some of the significant finds of the 1995 and 1996 seasons.
Every year since then, the exhibit has been added on to. In this way, even
when the dig is not taking place, people can learn from it. Digging proceeded from July 22-26 (Tuesday-Saturday)
and July 28-August 1 (Monday-Friday). After the first week, there were so
many finds thatGordon Russell set up the laboratory
on the second floor of the Counting House, supervising an average of six
volunteers a day.The laboratory work continued
after the dig, with the work being completed on August 18. Approximately
seventy people volunteered on the dig in 1997. Most people who helped in
1996 came back, and quite a few new volunteers helped as well. Most volunteers came from the Piscataqua region, but some
came from as far north as greater Portland, and as far south as Essex County,
Massachusetts. During the first week the crew averaged sixteen people a day.
The second week, with a second crew in the lab, the field crew was usually
around 10 people. As in the past, many volunteers are teachers and students
(middle school, secondary school, undergraduates, and even several graduate
students). One class from the University of New Hampshire visited twice:
once to dig and once to work in the lab. A class of 35 students from Salem
State visited the lab as well.In addition to volunteer
excavators, approximately 200 people visited the dig. The archaeological
field school from Strawbery Banke Museum toured the site, as did a large
group of students from Hong Kong in a summer program at Berwick Academy.
Others learned about the dig through newspaper coverage (Portsmouth Herald,
Foster's Daily Democrat, Portland Press Herald) or on the 6:00 news on Channel
8 (Portland). The public lecture by Baker took place on September 25 with
over one hundred in attendance.

1998 - The brief 1998 field season focused on fully
delineating the mansion house, and an adjacent earthfast barn or outbuilding.
After these excavations it was now known that the house underwent at least
three phases of construction between ca. 1643, and the time Chadbourne’s
probate inventory was drawn in 1667. After the 1998
season, the artifact total for the dig surpassed 15,000. In 1998, a third
structure, labeled Structure 3 was located immediately to the south of Structure
1.

1999 - Work in 1999 took place in several areas of the
site. First, extensive work was carried out in the cellar of the parlor,
particularly to reveal the brick chimney remains in the parlor. In addition,
extensive work was done throughout the lean-two. Some excavations took place
in structure two, in hopes of finding further bounds for it. Finally, work
was done to attempt to find the boundaries of the site, particularly, to define
structure 3, the structure immediately south of Structure 1. Although the
site bounds escaped definition, it became clear that Structure 3 was a seventeenth
century residence. The artifacts tend to be very slightly earlier than Structure
1. This gives rise to the speculation that Structure 3 was the initial house
built on the site by Humphrey Chadbourne, before the constructed his mansion
house.

2000 – Year after year the Chadbourne dig has always
seen to provide even more exciting developments than the year before, and
2000 was no exception. Work took place in three distinct areas of the site.
The very first excavation unit revealed the sill line of the northern wall
of Structure 3. By the time the season was over, much of the outline of this
building had been revealed, as well as the building (or shed) that attached
Structure 1 to Structure 3. Thus providing physical evidence for a huge
compound of buildings occupied by the Chadbournes, unlike anything ever
known for early northern New England. In addition to this work, the final
section of the rear wall of the house was exposed in the kitchen lean-to.

The greatest amount of work, however, took place with
the excavation of cellar of Structure 1, adjacent to the bulkhead, and the
hearth base. This area proved to be extremely rich in domestic artifact scatter,
and also the site of a huge pile of scrap iron, including hoes, hammers,
chains, and group of collars and yokes that appear to be used hardware from
the saw mill. The presence of this scrap iron suggests that a blacksmith had
a nearby workshop. Although the hearth base was initially believed to be
made of stone, much of it turned out to be clay, held in place by a wooden
retaining wall.

2001 – This season continued to define the outline of
Structure 3, in particular, searching for the front (or southern) wall of
the house. This proved to be completely illusive, so it may have turned out
to be construction via sill on grade, with no features to be discovered below
ground. Work on the northeastern corner of Structure 3 did locate a posthole,
suggesting a line of fencing running between that end of Structure 3 and
the eastern end of Structure 1. This would have formed the fourth side of
an enclosed courtyard at the site.

Work continued inside the cellar of Structure 1 as well
in 2001, specifically in the units directly to the north of work in 2000.
This area exposed the back corner of the cellar, proving conclusively that
the side wall and back wall of the cellar were both made out of wooden plank
retaining walls, held in place by earth-fast posts.

This find proved that the entire cellar was constructed
at one time, and led to a major re-interpretation of the construction sequence
for the house.It now appears that the kitchen and
parlor, with two substantial chimneys, were all constructed at the same
time. This was almost definitely in 1664, or perhaps 1665. This date is
confirmed by the brick with “64” which was found in the parlor end of the
cellar, and two window leads dated “1664.” One lead was found in the parlor,
and another was found on the stairwell to the cellar at the kitchen end.
It is uncertain whether or not the back lean-to was raised at the same time.
It probably was. Certainly this part of the house was built by 1667, for
it is included by name in Humphrey Chadbourne’s probate inventory.

Archaeological Results

Architectural

Since the earliest extant
house in the state is the MacIntyre garrison of 1707(in York), we have no standing buildings left to study early building
practices in Maine. Therefore, the Humphrey Chadbourne provides some of
the most important data yet recovered on seventeenth-century Maine housing.

The core of the site
is Structure 1, Humphrey Chadbourne's mansion house. The dimensions of the
house are approximately 43' x 30'.Until the 2001
season, it was believed that the house was constructed in at least three
phases. However, the construction detail of the cellar make it now clear
that the entire hall, parlor, and probably the lean-to chamber, were all
constructed at one time, in 1664. It is possible the lean-to running along
the back of the house was added on later, or it may have been part of a single
build as well. Excavations have made it clear that while the cellar makes
use of stonework as well as earth-fast retaining walls, the entire main cellar
was constructed at once. This was almost certainly in 1664 or 1665 at the
latest. Window leads dated “1664” have been excavated in both ends of the
house. One was recovered from the bulkhead steps, leading down to the cellar
at the eastern end of the house. Another “1664” lead was excavated amid
the chimney rubble in the parlor, at the western end of the house. This
parlor chimney rubble also produced a brick with the number “64” cut into
it before firing, providing a confirmation of the 1664 date. The parlor
was plastered, an expensive rarity for its day, but the room sat above a
wood-lined cellar, secured by earthfast posts. The chimney base sat on clay,
held in place by a wooden retaining wall, anchored with earthfast posts.
Behind the parlor, the extension of the lean-to was constructed with sills
on grade.

The substantial floor plan,
plastering and a large number of windows (then an expensive luxury) suggest
a true "mansion house," on a grand scale never before found archaeologically
in Maine. Still, the house is not out of place for the wealthier settlers
of the Piscataqua. Richard Candee, who has provided invaluable advice to
the project, has pointed out that architecturally the house has much in common
with the 1664 Richard Jackson house, still standing in Portsmouth.At the same time, the Chadbourne house is a bit of
an enigma, because of the variety of construction techniques used, including
fairly crude techniques such as earth fast posts, woodlined cellars, and
sills laid on grade. Although such techniques are relatively common at other
Maine sites, they have tended to be viewed as an expedient, used by people
who did not have the money, the skills, or the know how to build in a better
fashion. The fact that Humphrey Chadbourne, a wealthy millwright who was
also an experienced carpenter, would also build this way is somewhat surprising.
Chadbourne also did not lack for labor, for his probate inventory lists
five indentured servants. Presumably Chadbourne used earthfast architecture
as a short cut.With a large house raised at once
in 1664, there probably was not enough time to completely stone the cellar.
There must have been enough work to be done at the mill to keep everyone
busy, and Chadbourne had to wait until a business lull to complete the construction
of the parlor. In the meantime, lumber was cheap and available from his own
saw mill. Unfortunately, he died before he could complete the project.

After his death, Humphrey
Jr. and Lucy must have had other priorities, as the earthfast features were
left as they were.The archaeological evidence suggests
that the cellar walls probably started to collapse well before the house
burned down in 1690. The cellar walls were two plans thick – one horizontal
and one vertical. However, these were not enough to keep the subsoil out.
The walls had already buckled at the base in several places, before 1690.
Why was the cellar allowed to decay? The answer may at least partially lie
in the fact that the cellar appears to have been quite wet, and perhaps
not of much use.Furthermore, with so many sheds
and outbuildings, there may not have been much need for the cellar for storage
space.

Structure 2

Structure 2 is an earthfast
building, whose dimensions have not yet been determined. Minimally it measured
15' x 15.' Three posts have been located for this building, as well as
a shallow cellar, measuring 8' x 14'. Despite extensive work in this area
in 1999, no posts have been located for the northern end of this building.
It is conceivable that this end may have been anchored by sill on grade
construction, as a piece of what is believed to be a burned sill was excavated
along the line of the western wall, just outside the shallow cellar. The
presence of redwares that were often used in dairying, combined with the
shallow cellar, suggests this area might have been a dairy. However, the
presence of tablewares and a lateen spoon also suggest that food consumption
took place here as well. Hence, this may have been a multiple purpose building,
serving as a dairy, as well as a quarter for the indentured servants.

Structure 3

In 1998 work immediately
south of Structure 1 led to the discovery of Structure 3. Work in 2000 and
2001 exposed the northern (interior) wall of the building – consisting of
a buried sill.One post hole has been found on the
eastern end of the building, seven feet from the sill trench. If this represents
a gable post, then Structure 1 would have been fourteen feet wide. Unfortunately,
despite extensive excavation, no trace has yet been found of the southern
wall of Structure 3. Excavations in 1999-2001 trenched across the presumed
location of this wall, and found no evidence of a sill trench. This suggests
one of two possibilities. First, while the northern wall sits on a buried
sill, the southern wall uses different construction – earthfast posts. Alternatively,
the southern wall was built on a sill that was on grade, rather than buried.
Structure 3 sits on a significant slope. From the approximate elevation
established for the floor of the building, based on the north wall, if the
front wall did have a sill, it would have to have been located above the
present-day ground surface. So, the sill here would not have been buried
deep enough to leave a trace below the plowzone.

The topography of Structure
3 makes for an unusual western end of the building as well. Again, the downward
slope of the land means that this end of the building contained a shallow
cellar that was dug into the hillside. It is quite possible that this cellar
may have been open at the end, for access to storage on the ground level.
More work is planned for this end of the building in 2002 and 2003, to help
define this end of the building.

In addition to structural
evidence of a building, Structure 3 contains considerable domestic trash
– bones, ceramics, and tobacco pipes, suggesting that this building was used
in part as a residence. Like structure 2, it may have been used as outbuildings
for the farm, as well as for residential use. So far the data suggests that
Structures 1 and 3 were occupied at the same time, though it appears that
Structure 3 may have been initially occupied after Structure 1. This suggests
that Structure 3 was built (or at least occupied) after the main house. It
may have been occupied by indentured servants. Alternatively, it may have
been lived in by Humphrey Chadbourne jr., his wife Mary and their young family,
while widow Lucy Chadbourne and her younger children remained in the main
house.

Shed (Structure 4)

Structure 3 and Structure
1 are connected by a six foot wide building, presumably some sort of shed
or outbuilding. This building is marked by a distinct feature – a hard packed
clay floor. In one unit, a substantial rock was found along the edge of the
clay floor, perhaps indicating that the shed had a sill that was leveled
by the occasional stone.This shed will be the focus
of excavation in 2002.

Overall, the Chadbourne
site would have been an impressive complex of buildings, that represent an
important discovery for scholars of early New England. Traditionally, early
New England homesteads were believed to consist of a dwelling with a detached
barn and outbuildings. Instead, the Chadbourne property was an enclosed
compound, with a central courtyard. There are few known parallels to the
site. The best come from Connecticut, where research by Robert St. George
has discovered several similar enclosed compounds. These sites date to the
mid-seventeenth century, and were owned by merchants living in rural areas.
St. George suggests that these properties may be similar to bawns in Ireland
– manor houses that are well fenced, but not truly fortified. They may have
been organized to keep close watch over livestock, to keep them from wandering
off, or being seized by a hungry Native American.

It should be noted that
Lucy Chadbourne’s family came from the West Country, which is known for its
enclosed manor houses. It certainly is possible than rather than trying to
replicate an Irish bawn, she and her husband hoped to replicate the style
of a Devon manor house. Certainly the Chadbournes had enough wealth, power,
and land to emulate the gentry, a fact that is clearly reflected in the artifacts
from the site.

The Chadbourne enclosed
manor may not be as unique as first thought. Several other probate inventories
for Piscataqua merchants, particularly Robert Cutts of Kittery and Nicholas
Shapleigh of Eliot (Lucy Chadbourne’s uncle) are suggestive of enclosed
manor houses. Furthermore, preliminary test excavations at the home Lucy
Chadbourne’s mother, Katherine Shapleigh Treworgy Hilton, in Newfields,
New Hampshire, hint at such a large compound as well.

Artifacts

To date over 25,000
artifacts have been recovered from the site. The site was rapidly abandoned
and then burned down, with virtually all of the family's possessions inside.
Thus, it presents a complete and well-preserved record of life in Maine in
the late 1600s. The fact that the Chadbourne's were
one of the wealthiest families in the colony means that they left a rather
large and wide-ranging set of possessions behind for archaeologists.Many of the artifacts from the dig are on display at the
Old Berwick Historical Society's Counting House Museum. The dig is one of
the most artifact-rich and most important archaeology sites discovered in
Southern Maine. Most are every-day sort of items: hand-forged nails, window
glass, bits of stew bones, or stems from clay pipe stems. Others are much
more revealing and unique.Several complete spoons
- including one engraved "HL C" for Humphrey and Lucy Chadbourne; passementerie
buttons, with silver thread; a mirror with an ivory handle; a decorated spur; an embossing seal with the image of a swan, used to seal
letters with wax.Perhaps most telling, was the discovery
of a broken handle of a silver spoon, found in the trash on the floor of
the cellar. This piece was clearly thrown away, rather than melted down.

As one would expect,
many artifacts are related to the buildings on site. Thousands of hand-forged
nails have been found, as well as hundreds of pieces of window glass, and
window leads. Although these artifacts are typical, their sheer volume
speaks to the wealth of the family. Since nails were hand-forged and not
mass-produced, they were a costly item. Window glass was a relatively new
technology, and still expensive. While poor families had few or no glass
windows, the Chadbourne house was filled with windows. One piece of window
glass is quite unique, as it has "Tho:" scratched into it, while another
has a “W” or an “M” scratched in it. Such window graffitti was not uncommon
in colonial times. People would use diamonds and other sharp objects to
scratch their names or names of loved ones into glass. "Tho:" was the seventeenth-century
abbreviation for Thomas. It presumably refers to either Lucy Chadbourne's
second husband, Thomas Wills, or her son-in-law, Thomas Spencer. The site
also has several dated artifacts. Two window leads are marked "1664." It
was not uncommon for glaziers to place their initials or date of manufacture
on the inside seam of a window lead. A brick marked "64" was uncovered in
the parlor, not far from one of the dated window leads. Also, numerous pieces
of plaster were found in the parlor, and these are another sign of the wealth
of the family. Plastering rooms was a very new technique in the 1660s, when
the room was constructed.Indeed, only one other
seventeenth-century Maine site has produced plaster.Fancy
door hardware and imported "cock's head" hinges as well as curtain rings
suggest the house was well furnished.

Another substantial
part of the artifact assemblage relates to the preparation and consumption
of food. Hundreds of pieces of redware would have been used in the preparation
and storage of food. Fragments of iron and copper kettles would have been
used for cooking. Perhaps the most the most unusual food-related artifact
to be excavated is an iron dripping pan, which would have been placed in
a fireplace under a spit, to catch meat juices for gravy. Numerous bones
have been found, indicating the family principally a diet of domestic meat
from cows, pigs and sheep. They also ate cod fish.The
numerous pieces of fine delftwares and other tablewares, in addition to
spoons and knives suggest the Chadbournes were accustomed to fine dining.

Analysis of the extensive
tableware ceramics from the site are presently undergoing analysis. The
minimum number of vessels indicates there were well over twenty pieces
of tableware on site, between 1664 and 1690. This includes: combed-yellow
slipware cups, Bartmann stoneware jugs, Westerwald (at least one mug and
one jug), sgraffitto plates, Portugese majolica plates, English delftware
plates and cups (undecorated, blue on white, and polychrome). Many of the
tablewares were extremely fancy, including at least one vessel of “Persian
Blue” delftware.

Other artifacts
indicate occupations and activities on the site. An ax, a chisel, a timber
dog, and pieces of saw mill blades are evidence of lumbering and saw milling.
Chains, buckles and harness hardware were probably used by the Chadbourne's
five teams of oxen used to haul timber. A file would have been used to sharpen
saw blades and other tools. Parts of a scythe blade is a reminder of harvesting
crops. Fish hooks were used to catch dinner. Gun flints, musket balls, lead
shot, a gun worm, and the breech plug from a pistol are all reminders of
the threat of frontier warfare that would eventually claim the site. An embossed
brass spur would have been used for horse riding, and also as a conspicuous
sign of the family's wealth and power.

Like spurs, horseshoes could
be symbolic as well as utilitarian. One horseshoe was found near to the exterior
door in the lean-to, not far from the hasp for the door. Another shoe was
found in the cellar, near door hardware, and not far from the believed location
of the front door. Horseshoes were often over or next to doorways, to ward
of evil or witches. While some horse and ox shoes found on the site were
purely utilitarian, these two shoes appear to have been used to ward off
witchcraft.

A number of personal
possessions provide details of daily life. Quite a few artifacts relating
to clothing and adornment have been found, including buttons, part of a
thimble, dozens of straight pins, brass buckles, and two pair of scissors.
Several buttons are made of silver thread. A glass mirror with an ivory
handle was found in many pieces but it is a very rare find, exemplifying
again the wealth of the family. The embossing seal, decorated with the swan
points to the family's literacy.

Many other artifacts
have been found and await discovery. Because of the range of finds, and
their very fine quality, the Chadbourne site is becoming a "type site" for
Maine in the late seventeenth century. That is, so many different artifacts
have been found on site that other archaeologists are using the Chadbourne
collection for comparative purposes as they study their sites.

Conclusions

From a
research point of view, the Chadbourne site has revealed very important
information, and is clearly a site with not only local but also national
significance. Archaeologists and architectural historians have visited the
site and all agree that it is well qualified to be on the National Register
of Historic Places. The site is an archaeological "time capsule," rapidly
abandoned and then burned down, with virtually all of the family's possessions
inside. Thus, it presents a complete and well-preserved record of life in
Maine in the late 1600s. The fact that the Chadbournes were one of the wealthiest
families in the colony means that they left a rather large and wide-ranging
set of possessions behind for archaeologists. While the dig has been underway
only a short time, it is already one of the most artifact-rich and most important
archaeology sites discovered in Southern Maine.